Opinion: Craft beer is getting its first Super Bowl ad

JasonNotte

Shock Top first appeared a decade ago as an answer to MillerCoors’ Blue Moon Belgian White.

Craft beer is going to have a Super Bowl commercial, and the folks behind Budweiser are going to make it happen.

Anheuser-Busch InBev
BUD, -0.28%
isn’t above trolling craft beer acolytes and making them cry — as evidenced by last year’s “Brewed the Hard Way/Pumpkin Peach Ale” spot — but it’s eventually going to use one of the biggest marketing weapons at its disposal if the rest of craft beer can’t or won’t.

During this year’s Super Bowl on Feb. 7, when the price of a 30-second ad will come in around $5 million after costing just $2.5 million a decade ago, Anheuser-Busch InBev plans on tucking an ad for its Shock Top line of wheat beers among its ads for Budweiser, Bud Light and Michelob Ultra. While the Brewers Association and beer geeks may not consider Shock Top “craft,” it’s certainly the biggest step ABI has taken in that direction on Super Bowl Sunday.

Boston Beer Co.’s Jim Koch says he’ll never run a Super Bowl ad because his money is better spent elsewhere.

Shock Top first appeared in 2006 as an answer to MillerCoors’ Blue Moon Belgian White, which Blue Moon creator Keith Villa adamantly defends as craft. It stepped into the void left by A-B’s specialty beer division, which helped launch a line of Michelob seasonal beers and the careers of folks including Stone brewmaster Mitch Steele and Brew Hub founder Tim Schoen. Shock Top was even brewed in Fort Collins, Colo., just up the road from Blue Moon’s home in Golden.

Since that time, Shock Top’s line has expanded to include varieties including Pretzel Wheat and Pumpkin Wheat. For many years, Shock Top, like Blue Moon, was considered a gateway beer to those made by craft brewers. However, with Anheuser-Busch InBev picking up craft breweries including Goose Island, Elysian, Blue Point, 10 Barrel, Golden Road, Four Peaks and Breckenridge during the past five years, Shock Top has also served as a gateway to the beers of A-B’s High End division.

It has to. At Budweiser’s peak in 1988, Anheuser-Busch produced 50 million barrels of it, accounting for a quarter of the U.S. beer market. Budweiser’s 1988 barrel count was only 7 million less than all the beer that MillerCoors shipped in the U.S. in 2013. Budweiser has lost 68% of its sales since that time. Bud Light, the top-selling beer in the U.S. and A-B’s biggest U.S. brand by far, holds a 17.5% share of the market that actually declined 1.7% in 2014 after years of slight declines following the recession. Meanwhile, craft beer saw sales increase 17.6% in 2014 and its share of the market jump to 11%, well above Budweiser’s 7.2%.

Drinkers aren’t just flocking to different brands; they’re moving to more profitable ones. Import beer brands (including ABI-owned Super Bowl vet Stella Artois) fetch an average of $29 a case, and super-premium brands like A-B’s Shock Top and Goose Island sell for $27, compared with $20 for “premium” beers like Bud, according to IRI. Craft brands, however, fetch an average of $35 a case. While some at Anheuser-Busch InBev seem to believe that craft brands will eventually woo young drinkers to Budweiser or Bud Light, A-B’s latest craft purchases suggest the company realizes craft may be the last stop.

According to Nielsen, millennials are 34% more likely to drink beer than the average U.S. consumer, 34% more likely to buy imports, 26% more likely to buy craft beer, 74% more likely to buy malt beverages, and nearly twice as likely to buy hard cider. Anheuser-Busch InBev has been bulking up in all of those categories, but it hasn’t relinquished its use of more traditional methods. ABI paid the National Football League $1.2 billion in 2011 to wrest the league’s official beer sponsorship away from Molson Coors and just paid another $1.4 billion last year to extend that sponsorship through 2022. It’s also spent $278.3 million during the past decade — about $10 million a year more than any other sponsor — to not only air ads for Budweiser and other brands during the Super Bowl, but to buy exclusive beer rights from Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC that prevent all other beer companies from buying big-game airtime.

Though craft beer figures including Boston Beer Co. President Jim Koch say they’ll never run Super Bowl ads because their money is better spent elsewhere, they may at least want to consider the option. In 2014, the Brewers Association craft beer industry group took in more than $20 million in revenue against $16.9 million in expenses. That netted the group a surplus of more than $4.2 million, which could have been put toward a 30-second spot promoting craft beer. Instead, since the end of 2014, it’s watched Elysian, Golden Road, Breckenridge, Four Peaks, Saint Archer, Lagunitas, Founders and Ballast Point all drift out of its definition of a craft brewer and strike their numbers off craft’s books. In a few years, Koch’s Boston Brewing will leave those ranks as well.

Craft brewers have built their reputation on their beer and underdog status, but with 4,200 breweries in the U.S. and larger craft breweries being purchased by not only ABI, but MillerCoors, Heineken and other large multinational brewers, the time for a grand unified statement is passing. That should sit just fine with Anheuser-Busch InBev. If A-B’s smaller competitors won’t crack an IPA on screen during Super Bowl Sunday, maybe it will sooner rather than later.

Jason Notte is a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post and Esquire. Notte received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in 1998. Follow him on Twitter @Notteham.

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